TAMPA, Fla. — For Renee Gilliard, Tampa General Hospital has become her home away from home.
- Doctor, patient reconnect through heart transplant
- Pair were longtime family friends
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“She was definitely in a position here, she wouldn’t have been alive for many more weeks or months had she not had her transplant occur,” said Dr. Benjamin Mackie, Medical Director of Cardiac Transplant at Tampa General Hospital.
She spent years in and out of these doors after battling metastatic breast cancer, followed by severe heart disease that landed her on the heart transplant list.
“It’s a very serious procedure. It carries a mortality rate of 10 percent,” said Dr. Erol Belli, Assistant Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at USF.
“The first time I found that out, I cried. I cried,” Gilliard said.
Scary as it was, on April 14, the call came for her to get to the hospital — they had a match.
“That night I received a phone call and they give us the donor characteristics and I said, ‘This sounds like a good heart, who is it matching for?’ And when they said, ‘Renee Gilliard,’ a lightbulb went off. ‘I know her!’” Dr. Belli said.
Family friends for decades, the Bellis and the Gilliards have spent countless Christmas’, birthdays, and vacations together.
But Dr. Belli moved away for 11 years, pursuing his dream of becoming a surgeon.
A dream that would eventually bring him back home to Tampa, and on call that day in April.
“I remember walking up and seeing you on the gurney and you holding my hand saying, ‘I’m okay with you, I’m okay with you,’” Dr. Belli told Renee.
Within the same walls that Renee heard her life could be cut short, her life was saved.
In five critical hours, Dr. Belli gave Renee another Christmas, birthday, vacation — another chance at life.
“He said, ‘You’ll go home when I say you can go home,’” Renee said.
“A little bit of tough love there,” Dr. Belli laughed.
But now, months later, as she comes back to visit, Renee admits she’s thankful for this hospital.
Further proving, that home is where the heart is.
“I always joke with her and say, ‘I held your old heart and your new one.’ And she tells people she held me as a baby, so that’s how it goes,” Dr. Belli said.
If you would like to sign up to be an organ donor, visit organdonor.gov.